Managing a more simple process
To what extent are individuals homogenised as “workers” or “staff” so as to make leading and managing a more simple process. Managing has been described as getting things done, with and through people. It is essentially a series of interpersonal relationship which often extend over many years. Communicating occupies most of the time. Much of this communication is listening, getting the facts and, on the basis of that information, making a decision or extracting a decision from another. All human skills involve with listening and communicating, most of the managers used it as an expansion of skill area.
The final quarter of the 20th century was a period of transition for organisations managers and workers, bridging the gap between traditional work and the emergence of “knowledge work”, in which work is no long about massive productive but is concerned about planning and organising people with a effectiveness process (sveiby, 1997). We then must look at the difference between individuals and try to integrate and organise all the differences toward those subjects to lead and manage employees as a whole. It is argued that individual is different from a group at the work place.
Every individual is different and unique; one can not expect the other will have the same perception with him or her. Therefore, when undergoing a task in the organisation. It is a challenge for manager to ignore all the differences between individual and seem them as a group. As Furnham and Gunter (1993) point out: culture represents the “social glue” and generates a ‘we-feeling’, thus counteracting processes of differentiation which are an unavoidable part of organisational life. Culture differences may include a different race of people, different countries, Sometimes, even different areas may cause a different point of view.
Also, there may be different sub-cultures within an organisation, there may be some common organisational values or norms, but in some respects there will vary between different work environment. There are more and more multinational companies now, international manager should try to strike the balance between different cultures to achieve their goals. In the globalised economy and culturally diverse organisations, it is important to understand the cultural differences and try do find a way to communicate. Verbal, non-verbal and written models are the basic models approach to the communication.
According to cross-cultural studies, different cultures place different emphasis on those three types of communication. Take Japan for example, the managers prefer oral communication to written communication and can be more indirect and circular, while in North America, manager displays the opposite communication traits, they tend to prefer written communications and expect messages to be explicit and to the point. Besides, gender can also lead to the differences between the way in which men and women communication in work organisation.
Women are superior at decoding non-verbal communication and possess ‘softer’, more ‘feminine’ skills of communication, which are valued in post-bureaucratic organisations (Hawkinds, 1995). However, there is a danger that we might be over stereotyping about different cultural characteristics or gender issues but this can be learned through training and understanding other perspectives. Much of the academic literature characterises communication and employees involvement gain competitive advantages of recent organisations.
In relation to involvement, briefing employees to share information and demonstrate that they are ‘the most valuable resource’ (Hogarth et al, 2001). Involvement is important to find out the preferences of employees towards flexible work. If difficulties arise, talking it through with the employee’s means they tend to be more understanding of the problems and more willing to co-operate. Therefore, it is crucial to involve employees in the decision-making process rather than force it upon them. This can be done by holding a departmental meeting whereby the idea is communicated to all employees.
The other key issue is employee involvement in decision-making. Employees who are encouraged to participate in changes often feel valued by their employers. In FedEx, the Board of Directors of FedEx Corp has elected August A. Busch IV and John A. Edwardson to the Board. Busch and Edwardson will serve in the class of directors for which the term in office expires at the 2003 annual meeting of stockholders (BUSINESS WIRE), June 9, 2003. It represent that the organisation’s structure is decentralised. All the employees are involved in the decision making by having the opportunity to elect the members of the board.
Power is the heart of political system in organisations. Use of power is also another issue in managing people. The definition of power is that it is the capacity to affect other people’s behaviour with or without their consent, John w. Hunt (1992). It allows for the deployment of resources to achieve an end result. There’s no powerful man or powerless man but only in respect of particular people in a specific situation. However, when we refer to authority, it is different from power. Authority is limited, unlike power, will not have the ability to affect people to do things, but only have a conferred right to control some resources.
For example, a teacher has the authority to assign homework to students but may not have the power to control them. Fayol (1949) articulated the notion that management is a science. There are three main dimensions in face of managing people as a group, which are interpersonal human skills, technical skills and conceptual skill. Those skills are used as an efficiently way to organise people and tasks. Managers use the skills to managing employees and dialing with different kinds of task, they spend different amounts of time on each skill.
Not surprisingly, some might emphasise on communicating with people while the other emphasis on drawing up strategic plans. Increasing the performance by stimulating people to reform is the best experiences of work organisation. When facing a group of people, especially a work group, it is better use scientific way to managing them as a whole. It is discovered that unconsciously shared group assumptions. Although the work group attracts a strong psychological investment, it expresses only one dimension of mental functions.
Every group, besides being met for the work task, whatever that may be, is also, at the same time, unconsciously held together by and operating on an underlying shared assumption-an assumption about group and about the member’s contribution to it. It is suggested that human resource planning is the process of systematically forecasting the future demand and supply for employees and the deployment of their skills within the strategic objectives of the organisation (Jeffery Gold). Use strategic plan to organise manpower in the organisation, many successful companies institute following best practices in order to maximise their human resources.
The effective recruitment and selection is contribution to the organisation. Choosing the suitable person to join the organisation and be part of the group is a more scientific way to make managing and leading an easy way. The problem is how organisation can manage with the recruitment system and find a most justifying way selecting from all the candidates, seek to match the requirements of jobs with the attributes of candidates. Training, planned process designed to modify attitude, knowledge or skill behaviour. Development, based on behavioural change or learning adopts a far longer timescale.
The benefit that organisation might expect from on increased training efforts are greater productivity and better quality, versatility from the workforce, and better job satisfaction and motivation. Rewarding and evaluating also provide managers and employees a way to value whether their works have been done properly and worth fully. To response more rapidly to global changes, to make organisations compete more aggressively in global markets, to have a workforce that is more flexible and attuned to the needs of customers, senior managers have to fundamentally structure their business process.
It is the human resource function responsibility to add value to the business to ensure the mission is achieved by improving the productive contribution of its people. The human resource function plays an role in employees, the function must meet the needs of employees by finding new resources to allow employees to eliminate non-valued work, allow them to become involved in decision making, which will enable them to successfully perform their job.
In addition, the policy would need to be put in place to ensure that employees are valued. Overall, the organisation have to recognised their people as a top priority and the human resource department continuously reviews their reward and benefits package to ensure they remain competitive, training and development departments looks to identify the needs though the system.
